Red Flags
These three findings in a burn patient should make you immediately worry about upper airway injury.
What are hoarseness, stridor, and sooty/singed airway findings?
They suggest airway burn/inhalation injury with possible rapid swelling.
Hyperresonance on percussion after chest trauma points more toward this pleural problem than blood in the pleural space.
What is pneumothorax?
Air tends to give a hyperresonant note.
Visible inward movement of a chest wall segment during inspiration is called this.
What is paradoxical chest wall movement?
Classic sign of a flail segment.
Thermal burns usually injure this part of the airway more than the lower bronchi and alveoli.
What is the supraglottic / upper airway?
Heat injury commonly affects the upper airway.
This supportive intervention matters early in chest trauma because pain itself can worsen ventilation.
What is analgesia?
Pain relief helps improve breathing mechanics.
In chest trauma, worsening dyspnoea plus unilateral absent air entry plus hyperresonance should make you think this dangerous progression is occurring.
What is progression toward a tension pneumothorax?
It suggests pleural air is building and physiology may be worsening.
Dullness to percussion after penetrating chest trauma points more toward this pleural problem.
What is haemothorax?
Blood in the pleural space tends to sound dull.
This chest wall injury involves multiple rib fractures creating a free-floating segment.
What is flail chest?
The unstable segment disrupts normal mechanics.
This exposure prevents effective oxygen delivery by binding strongly to haemoglobin.
What is carbon monoxide?
CO reduces oxygen carrying capacity.
If you suspect tension pneumothorax with severe physiological compromise, this intervention should not wait for late textbook signs.
What is chest decompression?
This finding is more concerning than wheeze in a burns patient because it points to upper airway narrowing rather than lower airway irritation.
What is stridor?
Stridor points to upper-airway obstruction risk.
A chest wall defect that allows air movement through the wound creates this type of pneumothorax.
What is an open pneumothorax?
A communication with atmosphere through chest wall defect.
This hidden associated lung injury often contributes more to hypoxia in flail chest than the moving ribs themselves.
What is pulmonary contusion?
Contused lung tissue impairs gas exchange.
This toxin causes histotoxic hypoxia by preventing cells from effectively using oxygen.
What is cyanide?
Cyanide interferes with cellular respiration.
In a patient with inhalation injury red flags, this should happen early before airway oedema makes everything harder.
What is aggressive airway planning / early airway management?
The easy airway may become difficult quickly.
A chest trauma patient becomes more agitated, tachycardic, and hypotensive. The key reason these are red flags is that they suggest this type of shock may be developing.
What is obstructive shock?
Classic concern with worsening tension physiology.
This one-way-valve mechanism distinguishes the dangerous form of pneumothorax from the simple form.
What is air entering the pleural space without escaping on expiration?
That mechanism creates rising intrathoracic pressure.
Severe pain matters in rib fracture patients because it leads to this breathing pattern, worsening ventilation.
What is shallow breathing / splinting?
Pain can reduce tidal volume and lead to fatigue.
Smoke, steam, or chemical irritation affecting the lower airway commonly produces these two lower-airway problems.
What are bronchospasm and airway/lung inflammation?
Lower-airway exposure causes irritation and narrowing.
For flail chest, these two management themes are more useful than trying to fix the chest wall with your hands.
What are analgesia and ventilatory/oxygenation support?
Support mechanics and gas exchange.
In a patient removed from an enclosed-space fire, a normal pulse oximeter reading is a trap because this toxic exposure can still be severe.
What is carbon monoxide exposure?
Pulse oximetry can be falsely reassuring in CO poisoning.
A stabbed patient has reduced right air entry, dull percussion, and signs of shock. The more likely pleural problem is this.
What is haemothorax?
Reduced breath sounds + dull percussion suggest blood rather than air.
A patient with rib fractures is tiring, breathing shallowly, and needing more oxygen. The biggest concern is no longer pain alone but this combined problem.
What is failing ventilation with likely pulmonary contusion and fatigue?
Chest wall injury plus contusion can progress to respiratory failure.
This vaping-associated lung injury listed in the overview can present with cough, dyspnoea, chest pain, and hypoxia.
What is EVALI (E-cigarette or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury)?
An inflammatory lung injury associated with vaping exposure.
This oxygen-related management point from the overview is specifically paired with inhalation injury care.
What is humidified oxygen therapy?